scared dogs
by sankontesu
Summary: Kids? I don't think so. InuKag angst
1. scared dogs bark the loudest

scared dogs bark the loudest

 **part 1.**

* * *

I don't want kids.

I've never wanted them.

Or maybe it's not so much that I didn't _want_ them, it's more about the fact I couldn't even imagine having a wife to want them for me- no less finally finding said wife and raising them to be strong willing members of society.

…the society that has (since all I can remember)- silenced me and thrown rocks the size of skulls at my heels with slurs.

So no, I didn't particularly ever even stop to think about babies-infants-children-parasites- until Kagome had been approached the question (completely unprovoked) at the fall festival.

And while she had stammered awkwardly with her face growing hot and her ears going red as she shied away from it with the grace that only she can possess- I felt like my tongue had turned to ash in my mouth. Suddenly everything _not_ okay with having brats flooded my every thought, and no matter which angle I played it, it ended with me and her-bringing children into a world that would only grant them rejection.

"Probably later down the line?" She looked at me inquiringly (inquiringly?!) and then glanced away, gesturing with her hands to shoo the question away, like she commonly does.

There was a silence between us- something like denial hanging on top of it.

I wish I could tell you that things went smoothly after that- that she confronted me about the question later when we were alone in the comfort of our hut and that I responded with my reasonable points, hoping to convince her to drop it all together.

But of course, we weren't even half way to the hut…

 _"Inuyasha, do you have to be such a jerk about it!"_

 _"I'm the jerk? Oh, I'm the jerk now? Am I the one forcing damn brats onto_ you _?"_

 _"Forcing?! I'm not forcing-you won't even let me talk! I _f you would only-_ "_

 _"Keh, if I would only what? Give you what you wanted? Then you'd shut up?"_

She stared at me with glazed over eyes and I had a feeling I was already heading for the woods tonight, so everything else cold and broken and ugly in my heart tumbled like stones from my mouth-

 _"Well that's not happening. You're not winning this time, Kagome. I'm not going to be your fucking seed donation for your fabricated fairy-tale where we can have kids and everything will be all damn right. Cause it won't. Nothing will go right. You can hardly take care of yourself- and you think can take care of_ kids _?"_

I fucked it up.

I fucked it all up.

And she didn't even have to turn around quietly for me to know that. Leaving me with the heavy silence of victory.

I didn't want this.

Truth is, _I_ can't even take care of myself.

Truth is, Kagome takes care of both of us- the other day I didn't even know I was eating poisonous berries until she swatted it out of my hands.

Truth is….

 **Truth is, I'm terrified.**


	2. and their love is ardent

**-and their love is ardent** ** **[**** part 2 ** **.]****

* * *

 _Well this sucks._

I think that had I given into my guilt and rushed to her side to beg for any type of forgiveness- _that I didn't even care how many times she sat me into the ground, I deserved all of it!-_ then perhaps maybe I wouldn't have been out here, tugging nervously at the end material of my robe, and cursing any despicable forest critter that dared cast judgment on me. _You don't fucking know me, squirrel. Carry your happy ass out of my face._

A small part of me wants to plant into my fear and let it steadily feed me from the inside, but I've grown far from that. _Old_ me, probably would have let the rage build up into an overwhelming terror that could only dissipate with the time that I allowed myself away from others.

New me…" _new_ " me, is starting to understand feelings and emotions- and that almost every single damn thing I do affects the people close to me in one way or another. ( _It's really really annoying, by the way.)_

But I'm still _me_ in the end, so I guess regardless of what I do or don't do, I still can't seem to control my temper enough to _not_ shout cruel things at my wife.

I cringe-recalling the spiel- and a cross between a moan and a whimper leaves my mouth.

It's ridiculous, I finally have it all- _the girl, the house, the respect of a human village_.

My brother isn't trying to murder me, I have chickens of my own, and I'm sleeping inside horizontal on a _futon. (A damn near comfy one too.)_

And yet here I am, with this unsettling pain and these festering thoughts that swirl in my head like miasma- _outside_ , vertical on a _tree_.

I want to fall asleep, if only to squelch the guilt that's overlapping in my stomach, but I'm not tired enough. Mentally- I'm exhausted, my mind hasn't stopped running. But physically, all I want to do is leap back to the house and kiss my wife until all the unhappiness peels away. Maybe tell her with my hands what I can't seem to convey with my stupid words.

And of course in thinking that, the idea of children sneaks back into my mind and suddenly I feel sore all over.

 _Kids._

 _Keh._

 _Who wants em'…_

They _smell_ , they're _loud,_ when they're born they look like rotten boiled tomatoes…

…The twins are pretty damn cute though. They're learning how to talk in complete sentences- _finally_ \- and earlier during the festival they immediately stopped their yapping when I showed up to hold them. The baby is still completely useless and boring, but he's pretty quiet most of the time- when he's not babbling about some random shit only babies seem to know about. And he smells nice. Familiar and warm.

But that's just them, there's no saying what would happen if I were-…I stop and wring my hands, like I'm nervous about even picturing it- if _I_ had kids, they'd probably be terrors and the village would hate them and they'd morph into hell bent vindictive animals.

Kagome would be a wreck scouring to find them and she'd probably lose sleep trying to make them civilized.

I close my eyes.

 _…_ _But she'd be a damn good mother, that's for sure._

* * *

Her sigh isn't the first that alerts me of her presence, she makes way too much noise trudging around the foliage for me to ignore. It's why we stopped trying to hunt together- she scares off all the game.

Or worse…she pities the animals and begs me to set them loose.

The silly idiot.

I release a sigh in reply to hers and I meet her down on the ground.

I look at her, she looks at me- we both look away.

"I'm not going to apologize for wanting kids," she says firmly, as she crosses her arms. "But I am sorry that…I kinda sprung that on you without us talking about it first. I'm sorry, Inuyasha."

"It wasn't your fault." I hate that she's blaming herself, "You didn't know that Tsu was going to ask you that. Though what the hell- is that like a normal thing women do? Ask whether or not you're having sex with intent to get knocked up?"

She's chuckles softly and I feel lighter all of a sudden.

"It's something everyone does- hasn't Miroku asked you?"

"No he has fucking not, and if he knows what's good for him, he _will_ not."

She tilts her head and smiles with a roll of her eyes, "Inuyasha."

Something about the way she's standing there holding herself under the glow of the moonlight, it unravels me. She looks so vulnerable and apologetic and none of this is even her fault. Every thread of anger evaporates from me, and now all that's left is an ugly wrinkled ball of regret.

 _I'm sorry, Kagome._

Her sad brown eyes turn down at the ground as she says in a small voice, "Can you come back inside now?"

I can't stand it when she looks like that- I wish I could explain to her what's going on in my head, and melt the sadness away to replace it with happy memories and laughter. I take a confident step forward.

My hands make it to her shoulders, and then trace up gently to hold her jaw, forcing her to look at me. Her hair curls softly under my fingers against her cheeks and her breath fogs into the air between us.

This is an important moment- I'm not good at these things, but I can just feel it.

 _I need her to know._

But she beats me to the punch, and with an intensity in her eyes that no creature of this realm or the next could match she says, "I love you. And…And I don't need kids, I just need you. Okay?"

I feel wordless and stupid, like she's figured out why I'm so torn up inside before I even had time to analyze it myself.

She's amazing- how many times do I need to be reminded?

I nod a grunt in response and then she lifts into my touch and I kiss her senseless.

Kissing Kagome is a whole other world in itself and I can promise you this- because the experience steals away my sense of doubt, my sense of self, anything bad that has ever crawled around my mind for as long as it has taken root there, disappears with a wonder all on its own. And it's her, it's always her.

We stay like this for a while, holding onto each other and pouring whatever is in our hearts into these sloppy wet matches of our lips as they meet and unmeet and meet again.

When we stop and there's nothing but silence again, she murmurs to me quietly-

"And Inuyasha, don't- don't _ever_ give into having kids because of me. Kids…they need to be _loved_ and they need to be _wanted…"_ She's getting damn emotional here _,_ I can hear it in her voice as it shakes, _"_ -and I would never bring someone into the world on the doubt that you didn't want them too."

I pull away and realize something then and there that makes me feel unearthly- a godlike sense of peace floods my senses, and I smile. She breathes into the night with swollen red lips and I swallow a lump in my throat.

I lean my forehead onto hers and I whisper what I should have said from the very beginning.

"Kagome, listen to me, if I were ever brave enough to want a baby…"

I hear her pulse lurch and then she's shaking her head like I don't need to finish that sentence- like she gets it already and _it's okay we don't have to keep talking about it,_ but I grab her wrist from around my neck and set it down so she's focused to what I'm trying to say. I start again- quickly, before my courage breaks.

"If I were ever brave enough to have a kid, it'd be yours. And I would _want_ it, and I would _love_ it, more than any godforsaken thing on this planet, you hear me?"

* * *

 _I crash her against me with a hand at the back of her head and she buries her face into my shoulder with a sob._

 _"_ _You hear me?" I stress out._

 _She nods against my chest with a broken laugh and I do a decent job of not collapsing into a puddle of emotion myself._

 _Man, we're a mess…_ _…_ _But the good news is- still no babies-infants-children-_ _parasites._

* * *

 **A/N:** SORRY BUT YA'LL HAVE BABIES EVENTUALLY I DON'T MAKE THE RULES GOODBYE


End file.
